


Late Dawns and Early Sunsets

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, zombie apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To think the whole world had to fall apart for me to find you...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Her breathing is becoming shallower.

“You should go, Clarence,” she whispers. “You know it’s better… to move before sundown…”

Castiel shakes his head. There is a lump on his throat, and his blue eyes are shining from the tears he’s trying to hold back.

“Don’t cry,” Meg orders him. “Don’t you dare cry, you hear me?”

Castiel swallows, but the lump is still there.

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he says.

“You’re a sentimental fool,” Meg protests. There’s anger in her voice, but is so weak it’s barely there. “You’re a stubborn, sentimental… idiot…”

Castiel leans over the bed and kisses her to shut her up.

“I’m not leaving you,” he repeats, and he grabs her hand tight, like she’s an anchor he refuses to let go of.

It feels that way. It feels like, without Meg, he would have blown out his brains out long before. Or worse. He would have become one of those drooling, limping monsters that plague every corner of the world.

They met during the first months of the infection, when the government was still putting up a fight against the virus. She had been the only one to stand up against the silent doctors and policemen and demand an explanation: why was the city evacuated, why they took blood samples every hour in the hour, why the hell were armed guards on every corner on the camp. She was loud, and refused to shut up. She was an investigative journalist before everything went to hell, and old habits die hard. Castiel kept waiting for her to conveniently disappear one of those days.

Then the walkers arrived. Hundreds, thousands of them. The wiring barely resisted the assault, and by the time those useless guards decided to fire, it was too late: they were already upon the survivors, ready to feast on their guts. They always went for the guts first. Castiel had read somewhere that carnivores did that: they ripped the stomach of their prey open, and devoured their intestines before anything else.

He and Meg managed to escape along with a bunch of other refugees who were smart enough to follow a guard named Dean Winchester, who screamed “Like hell!” at the top of his lungs and stole the keys to one of the buses that had transported them there in the first place. It didn’t have enough gasoline to keep running for long, but long enough to get them away from the walkers.

After that, it had been months and months of endless travelling. Dean became the leader of their paltry group by silent yet unanimous agreement. His brother Sam is the second in command by default. They are both expert shooters, since both of them were in the army, but Dean insinuated they’d been handling guns since before they were two digits. Castiel doesn’t want to know what kind of upbringing they had.

Then there is Ellen and her daughter Jo; a boy named Kevin who is barely out of his teens and who doesn’t speak much, and an old grump named Bobby, who is also a perfect shooter. And of course, Meg.

She’s closed her eyes now, and Castiel lays his head down next to hers. _To think the whole world had to fall apart for me to find you_. He doesn’t say it out loud.

He has no idea how it happened. At some point during the constant moving around, the meager foods, the nights around the fire and the occasional encounter with the walkers, Castiel looked at Meg and realized she was the only reason he was still breathing.

Everywhere they went, there was nothing but wasteland after wasteland, deserted cities and abandoned homes, piles and piles of corpses with bullet holes on their foreheads, and as Dean said, “those are the good kind of corpses.” It was enough to drive anyone crazy, and more than once Castiel had been kept awake by very dark thoughts about how it’d be more merciful to just load his designated gun while everyone else was sleeping, and release his friend from the constant nightmare they lived in. To think Dean wouldn’t have to keep manipulating the old radio they’d found, waiting to hear anything other than static. To think Kevin wouldn’t wake up screaming from dreams involving his mother being massacred anymore. To think…

One of those nights, he had found Meg smoking underneath the moonlight. They had camped in what used to be a nice house in a suburban block, and she was standing in the porch, by a white column, even though it wasn’t her watch.

“Heya, Clarence,” she greeted him.

“How did you know it was me?” asked Castiel. He thought he was being very quiet. “And why do you keep calling me that?”

“Clarence,” Meg repeated, like that explained anything. “The angel from _It’s a Wonderful Life_?”

“Oh,” said Castiel, and he couldn’t hold back his smile. He had actually been named after an angel, but he doubted she knew that. “I never watched that movie.”

“Well, you remind me of him,” she said, throwing the cigarette but to the floor and stepping on it. Coincidentally, she ended up standing closer to Castiel. “Of _an_ angel, anyway.”

“I’m sorry, is that flirtation?” he asked.

Meg licked her lips. “Do you want it to be?”

Her mouth tasted like ashes and fire, and her body was a dancing flame under Castiel’s fingertips.

They’d tried to keep it discreet for the first few days, but since they were obliged to share things like toilet paper and canned food, they of course failed tremendously. Their relationship seemed to bring new life into their crestfallen group, who everyday found new ways to tease them about it.

It seemed like such an absurd thing, to fall in love when everything else came crashing down around them, but they all had to hold on to whatever shred of happiness came their way. Bobby had said that the night they stood in front of all of their friends and swore they’d be together ‘til death do them part. Castiel wasn’t sure of the legality of the ceremony, but Meg said since the rules had basically flown out of the window, they would call it a marriage if they wanted to and anyone who questioned it could go have their ass eaten by the walkers.

 

* * *

 

Her skin is burning now, but not the way it used to when they would sneak away from the rest to have some moments alone. The fever is consuming her, and Castiel diligently puts a wet cloth on her forehead. He knows water is a precious resource, but he doesn’t care. She gets paler by the minute, but when she opens her eyes again, they still shine bright with the same determination Castiel has come to love.

“Where are the others?” she asks.

“Outside,” Castiel says. “Dean doesn’t want to leave without me.”

“You shouldn't keep them waiting."

“No,” Castiel repeats, for what it feels like the millionth time. “We’ve been through this.”

Meg fights to sit up, and Castiel immediately puts an arm around her shoulders and holds her close to his chest. He bites his lip when he sees the bandage in her forearm. He knows it’s there to hide the bite mark more out of delicacy than actual usefulness.

“Go,” she insists. “But leave me my gun. One bullet. Should be enough, and there’s no need to waste ammo…”

“Are you listening to yourself?!” Castiel doesn’t mean to scream, but it’s the only way he can keep himself from breaking down completely. “No! I’m not leaving you! Meg, I love you… I…”

He stops. Meg is quietly sobbing against his shirt, obviously trying to stop herself. Castiel has never seen her cry before.

“I love you too,” she says. “That’s why I don’t want you to see me turn into one of… one of those… one of _them_. I don’t want you to remember me like that…”

Her voice breaks. She’s obviously struggling to get every one of those words out.

“It’s not fair,” Castiel objects. _It’s not fair what you are asking of me. It’s not fair that I only met you at the end of the world. It’s not fair that we only had so little time together. It’s not fair that I have to lose you now…_

“I know,” Meg whispers. “I know, angel. But please… please, don’t let me…”

_Please, don’t let me rot for two days until the virus kicks in. Please, don’t let me wake up like a maddened monster that will look like me, but won’t be me. Please, let me make this decision while I still can. Please, let me die in my own limited terms._

Meg’s hair is wet with Castiel’s tears by the time he manages to pull himself together enough to do what she asks. He leaves an only bullet in the chamber before putting it in her hand. She’s so weak Castiel doubts she can manage to lift it, but she lays back down on the improvised bed and holds the barrel against her chin.

“I don’t want you to see this either,” she mutters.

Castiel nods and kisses her in the forehead, and kisses her eyelashes, and then kisses her lips, long and hard, trying to lock their taste in his memory. If the virus is already in her saliva and infecting him, well, he can’t find it in himself to care. He repeats he loves her one more time, a dozen more times, before he stands up and walks away. He doesn’t look back. He knows if he does, his already wavering resolve will crumble completely, and that Meg won’t pull the trigger until he’s gone.

He finds Dean right outside, leaning against a wall, smoking. There’s no trace of the others. Castiel imagines Dean send them away to give his pain some privacy. The look in Dean’s green eyes is one of pure compassion.

“So?” he asks. “How is she?”

Castiel doesn’t have to answer. The shot echoes around the empty street.


	2. Chapter 2

That night at the camp fire is especially silent.

Castiel doesn’t remember the interval between hearing the shot and that moment. He is aware he screamed and cried and punched the walls while Dean tried to calm him down, he is aware at some point the Winchesters dragged him to one of the cars and locked him up because his yelling could attract some walkers.

He knows Dean went back into the abandoned refuge and retrieved the gun he left with Meg, because that’s the kind of thing he does, and a part of Castiel wants to ask him what he saw, wants some kind of confirmation Meg is really gone. Then again, he doesn’t know what good that would do, except maybe break his heart all over again.

He stares into the flames, not even looking up when Ellen offers him a can of food.

“You need to eat something…”

“Leave him alone, Ellen,” Bobby groans from somewhere at his left.

Castiel means to say something, but he can’t find his voice. It’s like he’s so shattered he can’t cry properly.

The group gathers around the fire and they dine in respectful silence. Castiel thinks he didn’t even get to bury his wife, and suddenly that thought obsesses him. He didn’t get to plant a cross in the ground to mark her grave; he has nothing of her to remember her…

“I would have done the same thing,” Jo says suddenly, cutting the train of his thoughts.

“Joanna Beth!” Ellen exclaims, scandalized.

“It’s true, mom!” Jo replies. “I wouldn’t have wanted to turn into one of them either.”

Before her mother can scold her again, she gets up and pretends to look for something in the trunk of one of the cars. Their quarrel does nothing to improve the mood. If anything, everything turns even more somber.

“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” Kevin says softly. “Like Meg. Like my mom.”

Those are the first words he speaks in days, and everybody shivers at them. Dean gets up and walks away too, to sit next to his old radio and manipulate the dial again.

“We can’t think like that, Kevin,” Sam tries to cheer him up, but his tone sounds unconvinced.

“But it’s true,” Kevin says, disheartened. “The cars are going to run out of gas, and we’re going to run out of food and bullets. And then what?”

Nobody answers. Dean’s radio spurts out static.

Jo returns, and it’s impossible to know if she’s heard the last exchange or not, because her demeanor is as cheery as ever. She sits next to Castiel and passes him a small piece of paper.

Castiel recognizes it. It’s a small Polaroid photo. Jo rescued the camera back in those first days when they entered every store they could find and hoarded everything that might seem useful. Eventually she’d thrown it away, but not before she took a picture of every member of the group. Perhaps knowing they would need them in a moment like that.

The picture she gives Castiel shows Meg leaning against the car, smiling but frowning, like she’s asking Jo what the hell she’s doing. She’s wearing her favorite leather jacket and her long black hair is loose instead of tied up in a messy ponytail. She looks happy.

Castiel holds the photo against his chest, his eyes flooding with tears.

“Thank you,” he mutters and his voice breaks. Jo puts an arm around him and lets him cry on her shoulder.

At that very same moment, an unknown voice breaks into the night. Bobby jumps of his seat, clutching his shotgun and Sam takes out his hunting knife. The only one who doesn’t move is Dean. He’s staring at the radio with his mouth hanging open.

“You’re kidding,” he mutters.

“… if you hear this…” the static interrupts the voice, but Dean touches the antenna and pats the radio a few times. It’s a woman talking: “… my name is Anna Milton. If you hear me, come to Kansas. We have a safe haven. You are not alone. Head to Lawrence, Kansas. Follow route number…”

The signal dies again, but it doesn’t matter. The Winchesters know exactly what route to follow.

“You’re freaking kidding me,” Dean repeats. He exchanges a look with Sam, and they both burst out laughing as they stand up to hug each other. “Lawrence!”

“We’re going home!” Sam says, and it’s almost like he can’t believe it. “We’re going home…”

The silence shatters into a million pieces as they all realized what that means. The might still see this through. They might still live to tell.

Castiel forces a smile because he doesn’t want to spoil the mood for everyone else. If only Meg had been there…

None of them can sleep properly that night. They set out with the first morning light, with hopes renewed.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work is a reference to the lyrics of the song Early Sunsets Over Monroeville by My Chemical Romance, which is a reference to Romero's film Dawn of the Dead. So, you know, zombie apocalypse-ception.


End file.
